‘You have authority to fire at will, Apache One.’
Golding checks his helmet display. From up above the main rotor, the fire control radar relays data to a matched milli metre wave seeker in the nose of the laser-guided Hellfire II missile. In the middle of his display, Golding sees the first of the enemy tanks that they have been instructed to destroy.
In the dark Wiltshire night there’s a blinding flash and an explosive roll of thunder. The ground trembles and groans as it sucks up the brutality of the bomb. Beneath two old Chieftains, the dome of the Great Room cracks like a boiled egg. The Sanctuary’s passageways disappear like shrivelled veins and the Crypt of the Ancients is buried under thousands of tonnes of sandstone, earth and rubble. It’s like it never existed.
188
Caitlyn and Gideon feel their way through the pitch black passageway. It’s getting wider and higher now. They’re able to walk side by side. She leans on him to ease the pain in her injured leg.
Gideon is still fearful. The ancients protected the shrines ferociously. There could be more surprises. The whole thing could collapse on them. Or underneath them. He stares into the murk, at the floor, the walls, desperate for any telltale signs. Anything unusual.
He uses his left hand to feel their way along the rock. Holds it high, in case there is a support beam or something worse threatening to smash into their unsuspecting skulls.
From the strain of his knees he can tell they’re climbing. Hopefully up means out. Bearing in mind how deep below ground the Sanctuary was sited, he guesses they still have a long way to go.
Caitlyn says little. The trauma of the last few hours and seven days without food have taken the last of her energy. It’s a miracle she’s still putting one foot in front of the other.
‘Do you want to stop?’
‘No. No. Keep going. If I stop, I might not be able to start again.’
They hobble on. A deafening noise erupts somewhere behind them. The ball of sound rolls through the passage. They can’t see anything, only hear and feel the shockwaves. The ground beneath them shakes. The walls too. The air fills with dust.
Gideon knows what’s happening. A cave-in.
‘We have to run.’ He grabs her around the waist and gets her moving. ‘The tunnel’s collapsing.’
It sounds like a giant subterranean beast has woken and is thundering after them, growling and biting at their heels. They charge in a blind panic up the darkened passageway, the jaws of the animal snapping at their heels.
Gideon runs smack into a stone wall. A dead end. The blow knocks him flat. He brings Caitlyn down with him. She tumbles sidewards into the blockage and cracks her hip.
There’s so much flying dust and rubble she can hardly breathe. The passageway is filling with soil and debris. They’re being buried alive.
‘Where are you?’ She has lost him in the darkness.
She feels soil and stone flow like a river of dirt over her bare feet. The tide of death is coming in.
‘Gideon! Gideon, where are you?’
He is face down in the gathering debris. His chest feels like it is filled with wet cement. There is a pounding in his head and his nose is broken. It takes all of his energy just to get up on his hands and knees.
‘Gideon!’ She shouts in desperation more than hope.
‘Here,’ he says. ‘I’m over here.’
But she can’t find him. ‘Over here! Gideon, I’m over here!’
He stumbles towards her voice. His outstretched hands finally find her. Dust is swirling, spiralling above her head.
‘Put your hand up! Lift your hand up.’ There’s excitement in her voice.
He does as she tells him.
His fingers find a thin ragged hole. A hole in an exit shaft through the tunnel ceiling. He links his hands together and presses them against her. ‘Put your foot in my hands. Climb.’
She’d laugh if she had the energy. It’s a shaft.
If it’s the same as the other one, Gideon calculates they’re just nine metres away from escaping.
Nine metres from freedom.
189
They haul themselves upwards using the last of their strength.
‘Stop,’ she shouts. ‘It’s another switch.’
‘Work round it,’ he says. ‘Don’t put any weight on it.’
Caitlyn shifts slowly around the trigger plate. But she is high in the shaft. She looks up, hoping to see some light. A glimpse of night sky. A sparkle of stars or fresh breeze. But there’s nothing and the air is still rank and fetid.
She climbs, thinking now about her parents, about making up with her mum, holding tight to her dad, saying a long and heartfelt sorry to Eric.
There are no more finger holds. She has run out of space. Reached the top of the shaft. She bangs it with the palms of her hands.
‘It’s blocked,’ she shouts down, dregs of panic already filtering back into her voice. ‘There’s no way out. It’s all sealed off.’
Gideon wishes he was in front and could explore whatever it is she has found. But the shaft is too narrow to swap positions.
‘What do I do?’ she shouts. Impatient. Frightened.
‘Wait and think.’ He tries to imagine the layout of the crypt. They climbed five metres up the centrepiece. They descended a total of nine metres. So the escape tunnel was four metres below the floor level of the crypt but probably rose by the same amount as they made their way along it. He reckons that since entering the second shaft they’ve only climbed about two metres. So the surface could still be at least three or four metres away.
‘Keep your hands off the roof of the shaft,’ he calls. ‘I’m going to try something.’
Caitlyn crouches low and waits.
He steps across the hole and deliberately puts his weight on the trigger ledge near his right foot. At first nothing happens. Then the stone disc above their heads slowly starts to slide back.
‘It’s moving. The thing is opening up.’
Her excitement quickly dies down. There is still no glimpse of sky. Just more shaft.
‘Keep going up,’ he urges. ‘After about a metre, you’ll find another trigger plate on the right. Don’t stand on anything on your left.’
She finds it. Tingles with anticipation. ‘What do I do?’
He hesitates. There’s everything to gain and everything to lose. He closes his eyes. ‘Step on it.’
Caitlyn edges upwards and leans across on her right foot. Nothing happens. She slides her other foot across. All her weight is now on the ledge. Soil and stone rain down on her head. She gasps with shock and fear. Turf and sand fall in on her and cascade down on to Gideon.
Fresh air. Caitlyn feels it for the first time in a week. She all but scampers up the last metre. Her fingers touch wet grass. She can hear the sweet sound of outside, feel freedom.
She hauls herself out of the hole and rolls on to her back. She’s still laughing as Gideon crawls out of the shaft and collapses beside her.
A cool wind floats across the bomb-blasted fields. They lie there panting and breathing in the early morning air. Neither of them notice the open-top Jeep heading their way or who is in it.
190
‘Stop in front of them,’ Grus calls to the staff officer at the wheel. He and Aquila ready themselves. Both are still dressed in the Craft’s sackcloth robes. The Jeep’s bobbing headlights cut through the grey twilight and fall on Gideon and Caitlyn’s wasted bodies.
Everyone had deserted the Sanctuary just minutes before the Master emerged and phoned the military base. In his capacity as lieutenant colonel, he’d given the command for the Apache air strike to take place and had then made his own escape.